Against the Current: Essays in the History of IdeasBerlin's main theme in these essays is the importance in the history of ideas of dissenters whose thinking still challenges conventional wisdom - among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, he brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times, and in the process offers a powerful defence of variety in our visions of life. |
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... passionate search for truth. Less, perhaps, than any other thinker does Berlin suppose himself in possession of some simple truth, and then proceed to interpret and rearrange the world in the light of it. Yet his essays are not ...
... passionate search for truth. Less, perhaps, than any other thinker does Berlin suppose himself in possession of some simple truth, and then proceed to interpret and rearrange the world in the light of it. Yet his essays are not ...
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... passionate voice of opposition, overlooked, misinterpreted or ridiculed by its contemporaries, utters in an often fragmentary or semi-articulate form novel ideas about man and his nature which are destined to grow into a world ...
... passionate voice of opposition, overlooked, misinterpreted or ridiculed by its contemporaries, utters in an often fragmentary or semi-articulate form novel ideas about man and his nature which are destined to grow into a world ...
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... passion for legality on the other. Berlin offers a convincing explanation by suggesting that both attitudes spring from an intense fear of despotism and arbitrariness. At all events, the contradiction remains unresolved, and ...
... passion for legality on the other. Berlin offers a convincing explanation by suggesting that both attitudes spring from an intense fear of despotism and arbitrariness. At all events, the contradiction remains unresolved, and ...
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... passion. Outside France, von Muralt, Bodmer and Breitinger in Switzerland, and Lowth, Blackwell and the Wartons in England, had all in their various ways rebelled against the desiccating spirit of excessive rationalism. Yet this ...
... passion. Outside France, von Muralt, Bodmer and Breitinger in Switzerland, and Lowth, Blackwell and the Wartons in England, had all in their various ways rebelled against the desiccating spirit of excessive rationalism. Yet this ...
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... passionate desire to do and be something in the world, would not allow them to forget their origins – could not perform this act of facile self-transformation. Troubled, and more often agonised and wounded, by not being automatically ...
... passionate desire to do and be something in the world, would not allow them to forget their origins – could not perform this act of facile self-transformation. Troubled, and more often agonised and wounded, by not being automatically ...
Contents
The Originality of Machiavelli | |
The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities | |
Vicos Concept of Knowledge | |
Montesquieu | |
Hume and the Sources of German AntiRationalism | |
Herzen and his Memoirs | |
The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess | |
Benjamin Disraeli Karl Marx and the Search for Identity | |
The Naïveté of Verdi | |
Past Neglect and Present Power | |
Authors Note | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
Aileen Kelly Alexander Herzen believed Benjamin Disraeli Berlin central century Christian civilisation common conceived conception consciousness created culture Descartes Disraeli doctrine E. H. Carr empirical ends Enlightenment essays fact faith French Georges Sorel German Giambattista Vico Hamann Hegel Henry Hardy Herder Herzen Hess history of ideas human Hume Hume’s ibid ideal imagination individual intellectual Isaiah Berlin Italian Jewish Jews justice Kant Karl Marx knowledge language laws letter liberal lives London Machiavelli man’s mankind Marx Marx’s Marxist men’s metaphysical methods modern Montesquieu moral Moses Hess myth natural sciences Niccolò Machiavelli one’s organisation original outlook Oxford passionate perhaps philosophical political Prince principles radical rationalist realise reality reason religion repr Review revolution revolutionary Roman Russian scepticism scientific seems sense social socialist society Sorel Spinoza spirit theory thinkers thought tradition trans true truth understand universal values Verdi Vico Vico’s vision Voltaire writings